Frozenbyte Community

MOD RELEASED: Alien Breed III Shadowgrounds *UPDATE*

Thanks! I will also include some Alien Breed levels (remade) when I´m used to the editor, with the latest beta I finally started on a map! And as far as I know you sure can make buildings out of the "building blocks", they might just look generic (like in Alien Breed for example hehe, so perfect for me ) The developers mean that you will need extra tools to create complete new meshes for buildings. Let´s say if you want to do the Eiffel Tower the tiling with blocks wouldn´t take you very far. But if you use a 3d party tool like Lightwave you could of course create a complete new Eiffel mesh (or whatever) and then get it into the game.

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 7:15 pm

by Hedgehog

Okay, than I just misunderstood the developers.

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:27 am

by Damage

Top Mod, mate, and I love the title track pic and music remix... Definitely potential here to do a Total Conversion, what do you reckon? Assuming you're not doing one already..!

Have only just go to the "alien" levels in the game so I've yet to see your altered textures, looking forward to it, but have to finish the game normally first! (I'm assuming you've altered the textures for the last two levels as the earlier levels I tested with the mod appeared unchanged).

On a side-note, I'm sure you're probably well aware of this but I've stuck a post in the General Chat board about an AB remake I stumbled across which is quality, if you've not seen it yet I highly recommend it..

Keep up the good work, anyway, and thanks for making the mod so cool!

D

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:05 am

by Damage

Addendum - Just had a look at the last two levels with all the new textures: Outstanding! Man, there's a new game just waiting to be born here...

Quality.

D

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:08 pm

by dizzy_2.0

it seems a bit stupid, but how do I install this mod? The mod loader doesn't see it, wherever I put the file and if I replace the data2.fbz in the main folder the localization is missing... help?! ^^"

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:13 pm

by Damage

If you look in the ZIP file there's a text file explaining what you do. It isn't a MOD, it's an addon, and the most important thing is NOT to overwrite any existing files.

If you already have a data1.fbz, data2, and data3, say, then rename the mod file to data4.fbz and copy it in with the others. Make sure that whatever files you're adding are the next in sequence. In my install I have 1, 2 and 3 which are part of the original game, and then I renamed the Alien Breed addon to 4.

Then just start the game and see the result. I'd recommend playing the last two levels as you get to see all the new cool textures.

Hope this helps.

D

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:18 pm

by dizzy_2.0

strange oO I thought I tried that already but this time it seems to work... thx ^^

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:22 am

by Matti

So are there new maps already?

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:25 pm

by dex909

Hello! Well, very nice to read about people liking the mod! Of course I planned a Total conversation, but I didn´t have enough time yet. I had several ideas and after some time I marked the following idea as maybe the final one for a nice TC: Including the levels of AB1 and remake them with original layout (MAYBE altered and slightly changed places for items etc.) and if this succeeds add AB2 levels and finally Tower Assault (Alien Breed III:TA) So we can have a real ALIEN BREED TRILOGY. The Amiga-Levels and maps of them (part one and two as far as I know) are available somewhere from the internet. I found some and saved them (some people wanted to remake them and posted them in some forums). Well - the levels wouldn´t need to be "exactly" the same.

Another idea would be to remake "Aliens" (part two of the "Alien" franchise) but that would certainly need A LOT more work. Alien Breed would be PERFECT to remake since this game has all needed "parts", models and textures to recreate all Alien Breed games without even the need of new content (my already released mod made enough changes to the original textures and art to make it all fit and look well.)

Still, I have absolutely NO time since I am about to finish university and I really hope someone starts remaking Alien Breed levels so that I can include them into my mod someday. If you want to start, here the final guidelines I worked out (this is the complete "planning" to create a nice TC in no time:
MORE DETAILED CONCEPT TO REMAKE ALIEN BREED:

I. Point of View: EVERYTHING you see and EVERY cutscene should be from the standard Shadowgrounds Top-Down view. Any cutscenes necessary shoud NOT be made in cinema-like sequences. Everything should look true oldschool and if Team 17 would have made such sequences they would have had no choice since everything was DRAWN top-down etc. DO NOT try to make it more "visually pleasing" since the engine of Shadowgrounds is perfectly detailed for top-down games but lacks enough graphics power to really show off in cutscenes.

II. Content: Start with Alien Breed 1 and remake its levels ONLY, do not focus on any later content as AB2 or AB:TA. Alien Breed 1 maps (top down view of the whole levels) might even be found on the internet. AB2 and others can follow after AB1 content is finished.

III. Story: AB1 uses nice introscreens for each level - you can do exactly THAT with the Shadowgrounds loading screens. At first use the Amiga graphics as placeholders and the same text for each level-intro-screen. If I have some time I´d love to remake the Amiga screens into something nicer with more colors etc. But to speed everything up, do not create new art and stuff - rather focus on the levels.

IV. Enemies: Since Shadowgrounds already uses similar things to AB there should be no problems here, just use the default content and leave out the monsters that AB1 simply didn't have.

V. Weapons: same here, there should be nearly everything there that Alien Breed had. You can do some renaming if there's time to make it fit even more.

VI. Details: like the correct names of stuff that appears in Alien Breed on logos and textures that are used in the original Shadowgrounds should be added LAST - except there is just enough time to do this earlier. There are some things that might be changed to make everything "AB-perfect" like including "eggs" (where there even eggs in AB? man, I simply forgot, have to research..) or maybe change the models of the "huggers". This is all stuff that should be done when the levels are finished.
The stuff I did to the later alien levels was intended to fit into a real Alien Breed conversion so this is all done and should only be changed if necessary after the levels and other stuff is done.(Alien Breed did use slightly more "grey" for the "alien" levels but also the H.R.Giger look that was used for the movies and so on.) You might change the textures to something more "grey".

I might redo this little "plan" in the future and at some screenshots for comparison if there is enough interest, we will see.

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 5:34 pm

by Matti

dex909 wrote:I. Point of View: EVERYTHING you see and EVERY cutscene should be from the standard Shadowgrounds Top-Down view. Any cutscenes necessary shoud NOT be made in cinema-like sequences. Everything should look true oldschool and if Team 17 would have made such sequences they would have had no choice since everything was DRAWN top-down etc.

In PC version of Alien Breed, when soldier moves with lift, there is shown cutscene and on it is shown side profile of the man.

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:51 am

by dex909

That´s absolutely right and it did not fit in at all. I actually don't count it as a "cut scene" but you´re right, it´s an animated sequence from a different point of view to create atmosphere - you could describe it as a cutscene. Well, this is personal choice after all. If the creator of any remake feels cutscenes from different angles are necessary, just implement it. I would be glad if someone would do the remake at ALL

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:40 pm

by fb_joel

Still sounds good. I'm pretty confident that the game will gain some more momentum/modders soon. I'll do my best to speed up things...